thenians, are now ready to adopt the
same principle (since, alas! you were not before), and each one of
you, throwing away all dissimulation, is ready to show himself useful
to the state, as far as its necessity and his power extend; if each is
ready to _do_--the rich to contribute, those of serviceable age to
take the field; in a word, if you choose to be your own masters, and
each individual ceases to do nothing, hoping that his neighbor will do
all for him--you will both regain your possessions (with heaven's
permission) and recover your opportunities recklessly squandered; you
will take vengeance on HIM.

Do not suppose his present happy fortune immutable--immortal, like a
god's; on the other hand, some hate him, others fear him, Athenians,
and envy him, and that, too, in the number of those who seem on
intimate terms with him; for all those passions that rage in other
men, we may assume to be hidden in the bosoms of those also that
surround him. Now, however, all these passions have crouched before
him, having no escape on account of your laziness and indifference,
which, I repeat, you ought immediately to abandon. For you see the
state of things, Athenians, to what a pitch of arrogance he has
come--this man who gives you no choice to act or to remain quiet, but
brags about and talks words of overwhelming insolence, as they tell
us. He is not such a character as to rest with the possessions which
he has conquered, but is always compassing something else, and at
every point hedging us, dallying and supine, in narrower and narrower
circles. When, then, Athenians, when will you do what you ought? As
soon as something happens? As soon, great Jove! as necessity compels
you? Why, what does necessity compel you to think now of your deeds?
In my opinion, the most urgent necessity to freemen is the disgrace
attendant upon their public policy.

Or do you prefer--tell me, do you prefer to wander about here and
there, asking in the market-place, "What news? what news?" What can be
newer than that a Macedonian should crush Athenians in war and lord it
over all Greece? "Is Philip dead?" "No, by Jove, but he's sick." What
difference is it to you? what difference? For if anything should
happen to him, you would quickly raise up another Philip, if you
manage your public affairs as you now do. For not so much to his own
strength as to your laziness does he owe his present aggrandizement.

Yet even if anything should happen to him